House of Lords: Domestic Committees

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Leader of the House for scheduling this debate. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, for her report. I thought it was me who gave her the titbit about printers being dealt with by one committee and printer ink by another, but the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, is also claiming to be present at the birth. As the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, said, we all served together as members of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, so it is nice that we are in this debate together.

As chair of the Information Committee, I have been privileged to work with a wide range of Members of this House. Their collective enthusiasm and expertise has helped enormously to add value to the work of the House. I also have the distinction of presiding over a committee which is being made redundant and of being the only chair to be made redundant in this report. I assure the House that I am not taking this personally. Members will know my distinguished predecessors who chaired the Information Committee—the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope. I am the only Labour chair and the only woman. Again, I assure the House that I am not taking this personally.

I will make a couple of points about the recommendations of the Leader’s Group on Governance before concentrating my efforts on the work of the Information Committee and the legacy issues arising from its demise. The long-term objectives for the governance of this House have remained the same. As has already been said, 15 years ago the Tordoff review said that,

“there should be a coherent strategy covering domestic management and services and the financial arrangements of the House”.

The Leader’s Group was asked “to consider” what arrangements were necessary,

“to ensure that domestic committee decision-making … is effective, transparent and accountable”.

We have spent a lot of time not getting very far. It is clear that nothing will be ideal in a complex parliamentary system. I accept that the current system did not provide an effective sounding board or series of user groups, except for the individuals who served on the actual committees. The recommendations in the report did not refer to the importance of sounding boards or user groups and I would be interested to know what consideration will be given to this.

Members’ attitudes to the functioning of the House will vary depending on whether they regard the House as a workplace, a legislative assembly or a club, and on which of these carries the most weight. Our obligation is to provide the best people we can to populate the new structure, avoiding the temptation simply to reward absolute party loyalty—a point just made by the noble Lord, Lord Suri—or to use it as a channel for trouble-makers to swim in. I am sure this has not happened in the past and I am hoping it will not happen in the future.

Another important obligation is to provide a management structure which is fit for purpose. The current structure of clerks is absolutely excellent for running a legislature. We are fortunate to have talented, hard-working and flexible staff who serve in the Chamber and in committees and Select Committees. It is not necessarily a good structure for effective management and financial clarity and it does not provide a comfortable home for the specialist professions, such as digital services, the Library staff, archivists, broadcasters, press and media staff, and certain education staff. All these areas are covered by the Information Committee and it is important that the new structure finds satisfactory ways of acknowledging those staff as vital contributors to our outward-facing role. We need more people in management with professional expertise, particularly in human resources, and the lack of diversity on the management board is extremely concerning. I accept that the management structures were not necessarily part of the Leader’s Group remit but that means the report can give only a partial picture.

I turn to the work of the Information Committee. We are meeting on 8 June to consider the legacy issues arising from our impending demise. The timing is not ideal but we were unaware of the date of this debate. I still believe it will be an important piece of work for the committee to do. I emphasise, therefore, that I am speaking in a personal capacity but I hope to reflect the committee’s views in general.

A significant amount of the committee’s time during my term of office has been spent on digital service issues: the helpdesk, Members’ equipment and the accessibility of the internet in the House. The appointment of a senior post in digital services was long overdue. Before that, we had a number of service failures and project overruns. Rob Greig has been with us for two years and is gallantly trying to bring some order and to reduce the number of systems—39—that we have in the House. Yes, we are the people who have curtailed broadband and printers for some Members, and who indicated as a committee that if Members wanted an iPhone they should purchase one themselves; I am beginning to appreciate why we are being chopped. This work is time-consuming and requires much patience. It is vital that the new structure deals with digital services in a fair and transparent way, as we have tried to do, and has a system for dealing with complaints. I think the point has already been made by other noble Lords that we need to know who to go to on the different topics.

My committee spent hours acting as a sounding board and participating in pilot projects. For that, I thank its members. We have encouraged tours of the Parliamentary Archives and I encourage Members to participate if they have not already done so. The location and development of the archives are at a key stage given the plans for restoration and renewal to which they are linked. The development of parliamentary broadcasting has been vital to get our message to the public. Remember, the House of Lords was the first to introduce parliamentary broadcasting. We are opening up to all the newer forms of technology, with encouraging results. Not long ago there were more hits for the Big Ben bongs than the proceedings of the House. Now on the bigger issues our coverage is increasing by leaps and bounds.

On press and media, we had a brief debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, so I will confine myself to two remarks. First, our staff do a brilliant job promoting the objective role of Parliament. They cannot promote partial or subjective material. Secondly, on the question of instant rebuttal of issues which affect the reputation of the House, we need to agree on a method within the Member/management axis which authorises action within a reasonable time. We do not have that at present. The committee also looks at the bicameral public information services, including parliamentary outreach and the Education Service, although the House of Commons leads on this. Whatever Members’ views on the actual building of the education centre on its current site, I urge them to visit the centre to see the work being done on our behalf to open up democracy to a younger generation. I am happy to facilitate this if anyone is interested.

Last but by no means least, we have a wonderful Library providing a high quality of service for the unique requirements of your Lordships’ House. Again, the Library organises visits to see what it can do to help, whether that is to access newspaper cuttings, e-books or research. Members of the Information Committee who have taken advantage of these workshops agree that it has increased their knowledge on what to ask for. The only caution I make is that the needs of Members of this House are very separate and distinct from those in the Commons, where the main need is devoted to answering constituency questions by researchers acting on behalf of MPs. A merger of these functions would not necessarily be in the best interests of the Lords, in my view.

Finally, the Information Committee has always believed strongly in openness and transparency. We believe that we should be able to say what equipment is available to Members. The politics of this is sensitive—I accept that—but openness will win in the end. Some members of the public think that we should walk barefoot to work over broken glass. They will never be satisfied but rational decisions about equipping Members of the Second Chamber to do their job can be defended and we should be prepared to do so. I have been privileged to serve as a chair of the Information Committee and thank all members of the committee who have served.